jsbeeb - teletext adaptor emulation

[robsonjb1]

Hi,
I'm new so please be gentle... !

This may be quite a niche thing, but I fondly remembered my teletext adaptor on the BBC B whilst growing up in the 80's.

My favourite emulator is jsbeeb so I ported over the emulation code from Beebem, together with the sample streams from 2006. It seems to work OK so would welcome any comments:
https://github.com/robsonjb1/jsbeeb

This fork offers a new emulated model, a BBC B with teletext adaptor. This includes the ATS v3 ROM. To fire it up you just do a *TELETEXT. Shift and F1-F4 to change channel. The fork includes everything you need (the ROM and sample streams).

Enjoy!

[SteveF]

This looks like a very neat piece of work! I haven't tried it yet because I'm reluctant to install npm on my machine (for reasons of varying rationality). Is there an easy way to have a play with this?

[BeebMaster]

Seeing "Bamboozle" reminded me of a problem I encountered when I was capturing Teletext pages before the abolition of analogue in the Granada region - I couldn't get all the Bamboozle pages because they couldn't be dialled up as they had alphabetic characters in the page numbers. Was there a way to do that?

[guesser]

Seeing "Bamboozle" reminded me of a problem I encountered when I was capturing Teletext pages before the abolition of analogue in the Granada region - I couldn't get all the Bamboozle pages because they couldn't be dialled up as they had alphabetic characters in the page numbers. Was there a way to do that?

Strange, I don't have any issues dialling the hex digits up on my beeb

[BeebMaster]

It's a long time ago, and possibly my Teletext grabber was just looping from 100 to 999 and capturing all sub-pages, but I did think I had tried to request pages with hex numbers in. I don't suppose there's any way to tell now.

[lurkio]

I haven't tried it yet because I'm reluctant to install npm on my machine (for reasons of varying rationality). Is there an easy way to have a play with this?

npm is weird and I don't understand it at all. Nevertheless I installed it on my machine so you don't have to(!). It seems to have built, but I'm not convinced I know how or why!

Anyway, I've now (temporarily) made the JSBeeb Teletext build available here:

bbcmicro.co.uk/jsbteletext/?&model=BTeletext&embedBasic=*TELETEXT%0A

https://bbc.godbolt.org/?&model=BTelete ... ELETEXT%0A

Nice work, @robsonjb1! Have you implemented the coloured buttons for the red/green/yellow/blue shortcut links too?



EDIT: Removed temporary link to bbcmicro.co.uk's installation of the Teletext-capable version of JSBeeb, which has now been disabled.

[guesser]

Nice work, @robsonjb1! Have you implemented the coloured buttons for the red/green/yellow/blue shortcut links too?

That's all part of the terminal software within in the ATS ROM

The red/green/yellow/blue Fastext links are F1-F4 respectively. Here's the keystrip
https://zxnet.co.uk/teletext/documents/ ... ystrip.pdf

[robsonjb1]

Thanks all for the comments. The ATS ROM should be happy enough with the Bamboozle alphanumeric pages.
I've tried doing a:
*CH4
*PAGE 12B
*TRANSFER 7000
*DISPLAY 7000

...and that seems to work fine. As @guesser says the ATS will handle the fastext coloured links automatically. The quiz wasn't put on normal (numeric) pages to avoid people cheating I would suppose.

Thanks @lurkio for hosting this branch. I will try and set up a free Azure app service account and get it put on there at some point.

Jason

[SteveF]

npm is weird and I don't understand it at all. Nevertheless I installed it on my machine so you don't have to(!). It seems to have built, but I'm not convinced I know how or why!

Anyway, I've now (temporarily) made the JSBeeb Teletext build available here:

http://bbcmicro.co.uk/jsbteletext/?&mod ... ELETEXT%0A

Thanks lurkio, that works great!

@robsonjb1 - and now I've been able to have a play with it, this is very cool. Super nostalgic (even though I probably wasn't looking at teletext in 2006 specifically), both for the content and for remembering using my Morley teletext adaptor using ATS back in the day. Getting good enough reception to download the telesoftware was a perpetual thorn in my side though...

[robsonjb1]

@robsonjb1 - and now I've been able to have a play with it, this is very cool. Super nostalgic (even though I probably wasn't looking at teletext in 2006 specifically), both for the content and for remembering using my Morley teletext adaptor using ATS back in the day. Getting good enough reception to download the telesoftware was a perpetual thorn in my side though...

You might be interested in a Pages from Ceefax tribute site I did a while back (takes current news from the BBC RRS) feed:
https://pagesfromceefax.azurewebsites.net/

[SteveF]

That's very neat! A surprisingly seamless blend between the teletext page and the picture of the TV too...